Carolina Hurricanes' Terrible Luck Playing Major Role in Ongoing Collapse

The Carolina Hurricanes, overwhelmingly overridden with terrible goaltending, out-of-position players and an endless swath of injuries, have tried seemingly every available excuse to explain their ongoing 1-13-1 collapse.

Perhaps it's time to acknowledge one excuse—one completely unsatisfying and entirely ambiguous excuse—that could be pushing this trainwreck-like slide:

But the Hurricanes' incredibly consistent ability to run into a "hot" goaltender on the other end is—although probably partially dependent on their general shot-happy strategy—also producing a remarkable statistical streak.

Half of that free fall can be explained by Carolina's horrendous attempts to keep the puck out of their own net, as the 'Canes nightly save percentage and defensive performance has fallen off a cliff since Cam Ward's injury.

The other portion—the offensive portion—is a lot less simple, though.

Despite the return of TuomoRuutu, the emergence of Riley Nash and the continued health of the Eric Staal-Alexander Semin-Jiri Tlusty trio, the Hurricanes' goal scoring has absolutely tanked over the past four weeks.

From the beginning of the 2011-12 season through Mar. 12—the final game before the Canes' collapse began—the team scored on 8.784 percent on their shots on goal. Since then, however, Eric Staal & Co. have seen their scoring rate per shot attempt drop by almost half:

Game

Shots

Goals

Mar. 14 vs. WSH

38

2

Mar. 16 vs. TBL

22

1

Mar. 18 vs. NYR

30

1

Mar. 19 vs. FLA

34

1

Mar. 21 vs. NJD

18

1

Mar. 26 vs. WPG

39

1

Mar. 28 vs. TOR

22

3

Mar. 30 vs. WPG

28

3

Apr. 1 vs. MTL

19

1

Apr. 2 vs. WSH

34

3

Apr. 4 vs. TBL

45

0

Apr. 6 vs. NYR

49

1

Apr. 8 vs. BOS

42

2

Apr. 9 vs. PIT

28

3

Apr. 11 vs. WSH

44

1

Total

492

24

In just the last five games, moreover, the 'Canes have scored on an abysmal 3.365 percent of their shots, taking more than 40 for four consecutive games and coming up almost empty in all of them.

Fortunately, the Hurricanes' luck is bound to change eventually.

The Tampa Bay Lightning, after beginning the 2013 season 6-0-1, experienced a PDO reversion to the mean of their own back in January-February. Per CBS Sports writer Adam Gretz's Feb. 15 column, the Bolts' scored on 18 percent (37 goals) of their 201 shots during the hot start but then just eight percent (12 goals) of their 147 shots during their following 0-5-1 slide.

"They were a team that was riding some ridiculous percentages that simply weren't going to last," he wrote. "It was a mirage."

Is luck a legitimate excuse for the Hurricanes' struggles?

YesNoPartiallySubmit Votevote to see results

Is luck a legitimate excuse for the Hurricanes' struggles?

Yes

27.8%

No

34.6%

Partially

37.6%

Total votes: 306

The 'Canes may well be in store for a revival in the PDO column during their season's final eight games; it's simply hard to believe that a team could have such terrible scoring luck for such a long period of time.

Conversely, with the campaign already doomed in terms of making the playoffs, losing out and landing a top-five draft pick would probably be best for the future of the franchise.

Whether luck will allow that to happen, though, is a different story.

Mark Jones has been a Carolina Hurricanes featured columnist for Bleacher Report since 2009. Visit his profile to read more, or follow him on Twitter.